meet our friends: the murdocks

Our good friends, the Murdock family (David, Sarah, Jane and Abby) asked us to snap a couple family pictures for them a couple nights ago.  I think they are the cutest family so i had to share a few!

(this girl LOVES her cheetah)

We are so blessed to have such great friends.

aubree update

We went to the dr a week ago and aubree is doing great. She is a whole whopping 19 pounds :) But she is healthy and developing perfectly! She is talking more and more each day. She loves to "play soccer" with her dad,  loves to eat chocolate chips (she knows where they are in the pantry and she has been caught eating them), loves to dance and spin in circles, LOVES to play outside, LOVES to play with moms purse, LOVES to put on lotion (constantly coming up to me with the lotion bottle in hand asking for "more"), gives the best hugs and kisses! We love this little sweetie. Here are a few pictures we wanted to share.

flying

 We went on a flight seeing tour a couple weekends ago around Denali. Unfortunately it was super cloudy and rainy so we weren't able to see all that much, but what we did see was beautiful. I have never been on a small plane like this before and  i was a little nervous, but we survived and had a lot of fun.

The pilot told us that she would be fine to get out of the carseat after take off if she cried. She sure cried. :) We let her out and all she wanted to do was stand in front of the carseat and play with the buckles. Whatever keeps her quiet right :)

 There were huge glaciers under us the whole time we were flying. They were mostly covered in dirt and rocks, but every now and again there would be patches of this bright blue water(above) or really cool ice designs (below).

 It's fall in Alaska-the colors have started changing!

 The last few minutes of the flight were rough. Aubree starting screaming out of the blue. It took me a minute to realize what was wrong-her ears were hurting her. Poor girl. Once we landed she was back to her happy self.  I can now cross "fly in a small plane over alaska" off of my "to-do" list-not sure it was on there in the first place, but i'll add it on and cross it off now. 

learning to walk

Aubree has been learning to walk for a while now. 

She is fully capable of walking everywhere by herself but simply prefers to crawl. Maybe because she has mastered crawling and is really good at it? Maybe because walking is more intimidating? I am not sure. No matter what the reason she still is not jumping on the "walking train" like i thought she would.

She walks around the house when you stand her up and tell her to walk-otherwise she just cruises around on her hands and knees.  She will be there any day now. Any day she will just stand up and keep going. Crash and fall on her bum and then stand up and keep walking. I just know she will. But until then we will keep practicing. 

 I was so glad i caught these last two pictures because she would say "Hi" to every car that drove past or every bicyclist that rode past. It was adorable. 

Last Weekend's Hike

Last weekend's hiking trip!  We're not sure what the trail is called, but it starts out at the Flat Top parking lot, goes along Powerline, hangs a left on the Little O'Malley trailhead and it put us somewhere between Little O'Malley and Big O'Malley peaks.  Thought we'd share some pics.

Aubs and her friend Jane hanging in the car before the hike.

We've had the best weather this summer.  It was the perfect evening for a hike.

The landscape was beautiful and these puffy, misty clouds kept rolling through while we hiked.

 Still a little snow along the trail

This wasn't the summit, but we were getting closer.  We paused and got this sweet pic of Holly and Aubree silhouetted against the sun.

It was at this point that we left Aubree in the care of our hiking partners and great friends the Murdocks.  They did the hike with a 6 week-old and a toddler - yeah, props to them! Holly and I ran ahead to to make it to the end of the trail where we hoped to find a lake (at least that is what we had been told we would find).

The Murdocks

I sucked wind behind Holly for probably a mile or more to get to the end, realizing just how out of shape I've gotten, but we made it!

 On the way back we were booking it because we were sure Aubree would be a crying mess (we were right!), but while we were running back the clouds came in really thick and we couldn't help but take a couple of pictures.

The hike out felt like it took 3x as long as the hike in...three tired, hungry kids and four exhausted adults...we didn't make it back to the parking lot until after 11:00PM.

Oh, and we saw a moose...